Dura-Guard Dural Repair Patch, PRECLUDE Dura Substitute, and Codman ETHISORB Dura Patch were evaluated in a six-month dural tissue reaction study in rabbits. Bilateral craniotomy was followed by subdural implantation for each dura mater substitute. The surgical procedure for the sham control group was the same except that no material was implanted. Implantation of all of these dura mater substitutes for 28, 91, or 182 days post-implantation did not result in any deaths or clinical neurobehavioral abnormalities, changes in cerebrospinal fluid, or significant macroscopic changes at necropsy. However, histomorphologic evaluation of the implantation sites revealed some differences in the tissue response to these materials. For Dura-Guard Dural Repair Patch, a nonabsorbable material derived from bovine pericardium, the implantation site was characterized by fibrosis of the overlying area with islands of osseous metaplasia and adhesions to the brain surface. Over time, infiltrative fibrosis of the implant resulted in separation of the collagenous layers of the implant and compression of the underlying brain. Fibrosis of the overlying area that incorporated this material formed a 'replacement' dura mater. Adhesions to the brain surface observed initially were still present at six months post-implantation. Implantation of PRECLUDE Dura Substitute, a nonabsorbable material comprised of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene, resulted in virtually no early reaction, and few adhesions to the brain surface at any time period. Although this material was eventually incorporated by fibrosis, islands of osseous metaplasia were also observed in this 'replacement' dura mater. The tissue reaction to Codman ETHISORB Dura Patch, an absorbable material comprised of polyglactin 910 and polydioxanone, was generally characterized by low-grade granulomatous inflammation and initial adhesions to the brain surface. The three-dimensional structure of this implant acted as a scaffold to guide the development and integration of a 'replacement' dura mater. The absorption of the material was associated with complete resolution of the inflammatory reaction, a lack of cerebral adhesions, and restoration of the normal architecture of this region. In conclusion, subdural implantation of Dura-Guard Dural Repair Patch, PRECLUDE Dura Substitute, or Codman ETHISORB Dura Patch in rabbits for up to six months resulted in the eventual restoration of the dura mater without significant adverse effects. However, osseous metaplasia associated with nonabsorbable Dura-Guard Dural Repair Patch and PRECLUDE Dura Substitute, and the infiltration of Dura-Guard Dural Repair Patch by fibrosis suggests that long-term follow-up may be needed after the use of these materials in patients. An advantage of Codman ETHISORB Dura Patch was that it was completely absorbed after guiding the restoration of the dura mater without any morphological sequelae.

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Cartography of the First Congress of the AFS Using the Method of Associated Words: The 2004 congress of the French Sociological Association (AFS) included more than 1,000 presentations. Considered as representative of contemporary French sociology, the corpus of abstracts is analyzed with Colliope, a text-analysis computer program based on the associated-words method. A cartography of the entire corpus shows rather varied themes which are interconnected but weakly structured. The role of the term WOMAN as a pole, in the sense that it is the link between many different themes, stands out. Cartographies of sub-sets of abstracts, grouped together by thematic network (RT), reveal more structured results which remain strongly interconnected. It would be interesting to compare these results with those of other text-analysis approaches which should be done soon.

Analyse des correspondances et analyse par mots clefs de dix ans d'articles du BMS (1993-2003): Avec le programme Trideux d'analyse factorielle des correspondances et le programme Calliope d'analyse de co-occurrence de mots clefs, nous traitons la base données constituée de tous les mots c lefs décrivant les articles de recherche et les rapports " recherche en cours" publiés par le BMS de décembre 1993 à octobre 2003. Nous présentons les résultats de ces analyses, suivis de la liste complète des tables des matières, l'index des auteurs et celui des titres des articles et des rapports.